There are good specialists in Armenia who tell the reality with photos. Years ago, many of them worked in the news format, covering a series of events. Some news sites subscribed to photo agencies, paid for photos, while others used them without a link or a proper link.

Now in the market of photo production, there are mainly creator’s projects, with the exception of large-scale events.

Photojournalists mention different reasons here.

Gevorg Ghazaryan, Photojournalist, cooperates with the Chinese “Xinhua” news agency

His main concern with the local market is his low pay and superficial, incomplete insights into photojournalism.

Photos are not valued in the local market

In recent years, Armenian photoproduction has not developed in the domestic market and has no new benchmark. The objective reason is that the biggest player, PanArmenian Photo, has left the field. For years it dictated market standards and style. In fact, there was no photo agency of such quality and scale in the region, whose photos were used on such a large scale by the world’s most authoritative media.

PanPhoto had a lot to do not only in the domestic market but also could cooperate with foreign platforms, becoming a regional agency. It was time to enter the international market. In 5-10 years, increasing its network in Iran, Turkey, Georgia, it could have become a world leader.

Its removal from the field created great opportunities for other agencies, especially Armenpress. However, having good photographers, Armenpress could not fill that gap in the field and become a leader. It could not create a unified style, handwriting.

The Armenian market for photojournalism is very small, resources are limited, but the quality is incomparably high.

The problem is that in Armenia they are ready to pay a small amount for a photo, although we have individual photojournalists who create very high-quality works even in these conditions.

Armenia has high-quality photo production

Our photos are competitive in the world, but there are very few interesting events in the local market abroad.

Nobody needs the landscapes of Armenia, because there are more wonderful views of nature in the world. The same goes for wildlife, we do not have unique species that are interesting to outside viewers and, say, find a place in the popular Nuture magazine.

Now there are specialists providing high quality, whose works from time to time appear on well-known foreign platforms. Many even bring awards to Armenia, but it is either not covered or is done so very superficially. For example, the story of the famous photo of former President Armen Sargsyan’s personal photographer Davit Hakobyan, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.

The work of photojournalists in Armenia is not valued, they do not understand the power of photography, news and other websites do not want to spend money on photography. And even if someone becomes active in this field, starts to attract attention to themselves, and receives some awards, the series begins. Photography, which is a branch of art, is so degraded and politicized that it becomes pointless to work with any platform inside.

The local media must understand that the photo has power. If their materials have good photos, their chances of success go up by 51%. The right photo and the right caption will definitely lead to the text, even if it is uninteresting and illiterate.

Melik Baghdasaryan, Director of “Photolur” Agency

Events have decreased in recent years, there is little to document. We used to get 700-800 photos a month, now 200-220. This cannot but affect subscriptions and financial flows.

Attitudes towards photography have changed

This government has chosen a new way of working, choosing spokespersons and officials who will not be in touch with us and invite us to cover various events but to hide from us.

In the past, there were very few state agencies, with which it was not possible to cooperate, now it is widespread. Of course, they do not say we don’t want to work with you, but in that case, how do we know what will happen and when to go to take photos?

There is no documentation today

Of course, one of the reasons is COVID, press conferences, meetings, and other events are rare, they are either held online or if we are invited to take photos, the masks interfere. Although sometimes we find a convenient moment, for example, in the photo of ministers or deputies without masks.

The impression is that nothing is happening. It is important to understand that the pharmacist of this or that structure will change, but in this period there will be no information in the archive about the activity of the given institute.

For example, it is already the 4th year that we are accredited by the RA President’s staff to cover the presidential events. We have never seen the face of President Armen Sargsyan.

Now Alen Simonyan is the acting president, if years later I am asked to show any of the photos of the president of this region, I will not have anything in my hand, because to photograph the events means to document.

Many of our photos are not distributed, but they go to our archive and become history.

Personal photographer ․․․

It’s not that they do not understand the meaning of photos, they just have a personal photographer for that. Every official comes to work and brings his speaker and photographer.

We have photos that have been edited with the desires of the right leader.

I do not have high hopes that something will change in the near future, this working style can become a good tradition for the next government.

And now we can only take photos of various protests. It seems that we only cover the opposition, we are deprived of the opportunity to see the work of the government.

Nazik Armenakyan, photojournalist, co-founder of “4 Plus” Documentary Photography Center

The problem of photo development in Armenia is mainly connected with financing. In our case, the main customers are from abroad, who are interested in specific political content.

An organization like ours, which is independent and has no political position, cannot be involved in foreign orders with such a topic.

However we are currently doing a big project with 6 foreign journalists on the topic of the 44-day war, which is hard work for us, the wounds are still fresh.

There is no order for serious projects in the local market

We work in the domestic market for photos of printed materials, we have exhibitions, but we do not have orders for serious projects. People, the media do not understand the importance of documentation. There is no demand from either the media or state structures.

The editorial offices must review their policy in order to have some development and dynamics. Now they take photos from the Internet for any topic, mainly without a link, without getting permission to use them, because for them a photo has no value.

Photography has a problem of valuation in Armenia

In our country, only the text matters. They do not want to understand that a photo is not just an illustration, but that it has meaning, it is content.

We have a task to educate people. It is important that the photojournalist has some knowledge and starts realizing the importance of their work.

We want to use our 10 years of experience correctly and we plan to establish a school in the near future. There are many smart young professionals who want to take photos of everything and think that technical possibilities are important in this case.

We want to teach you to think in photography, regardless of your technical skills, to have a specialization in the field, to look at the topics from a different angle, to understand what is worth photographing, why, to help gather a literate portfolio. That is, to work with visual thinking, which in the future will help to be realized both inside and outside.

Visual stories have great power and influence outside, here they have a short life, and do not receive much attention.

The positive change of the recent period is that media content creation organizations apply to us to create a deep, interesting, literate visual material for themselves.

They apply to us because they know that we can find a way to present the topic in a unique way.

In any case, there is no activity in the field. Perhaps this passivity is also due to the influence of COVID and the war, photojournalists find it difficult to return to their former work rhythm.

Gayane Asryan